Non-Visual Browser Command Set

Note: This is an excerpt from the pwWebSpeak User Documentation, circa 1997. The list below is a general set of browser commands and functions that could be mapped to either the keyboard or user defined menu items. The browser also allowed plugins to essentially call a browser API function that would invoke the desired command directly. Plugins were developed using this approach, including a DTMF telephone interface for a phone browser, a TRACE EZ-Access interface, touch screens, and speech recognition. The implemented command set was larger than revealed in the documentation, as many were experimental.

6. Command and Function Details

This section provides a detailed description of each of the functions and commands that you can use within pwWebSpeak. A Default Command Summary is followed by a functional breakdown of the keyboard commands and their actions. The keyboard commands shown are those set by default when pwWebSpeak is installed. You may customize the keyboard interface to better reflect your own preferences, or for specific application or usage styles. Details on customizing the keyboard interface are noted in the section on Customizing the Keyboard Commands. In the following sections both the default keyboard command and the corresponding internal command name are given.

6.1 Command Summary

The following is a list of all internal commands within pwWebSpeak, their default keyboard assignment, and a brief description of each command. The commands are noted in the form they are required to be used if you customize the keyboard commands or the Command Menu facility. See the sections on Customizing the Keyboard Commands and Customizing the Command Menu for details of how the commands are used in this manner.

ADDFAVORITELINK, Control-A – Adds the currently pointed to Link on the Page to the Favorites list or adds the current entry in the Open Page dialog to the Favorites list

ADDFAVORITES, Alt-A – Add the current Page to the favorites list

BACKCOLOR, Control-F12 – Steps through the available background colors for the display

BACKPAGE, Alt-B – Steps back to the immediately preceding Page that was being browsed.
This will position in the preceding Page at the location that you left it.

DECRFONTSIZE, Control-F11 – Decrease the size of the font on the pwWebSpeak display

DECRRATE, Alt-L – Decrease the synthesizers reading rate

DECRVOLUME, – (numeric minus sign) – Decrease of the synthesizer volume if supported by the synthesizer

EXIT, Alt-X – Exit from pwWebSpeak with a prompt to verify that you really wish to exit

FAVORITES, Shift-F2 – Opens the favorites list so that you can select and retrieve a favorite Page

FINDELEMENT – This allows you to specify the characters of an HTML tag that you wish to position to on the Page. The search is always from current position towards the end of the Page. The syntax is:

findelement:XXX

where XXX represents the desired characters of the HTML tag to be matched, e.g. findelement:h2 to match an H2 tag or

findelement:/form

to find the end of a Data Entry form.

FINDPREVELEMENT – This allows you to specify the characters of an HTML tag that you wish to position to on the Page. The search is always from current position towards the beginning of the Page. The syntax is:

findprevelement:XXX

where XXX represents the desired characters of the HTML tag to be matched, e.g. findprevelement:h2 to match an H2 tag or

findprevelement:table

to move to the beginning of a Table.

FIRSTITEM, Home – Takes you to the first element on a Page or a list, or the beginning of a data entry field

FORECOLOR, Shift-F12 – Step through the available colors for the displayed text

HELP, F1 – This takes you to the help file and allows you to read the help file. When in the Command Menu, this reads the Help file entry for the specific command.

IDENTIFY, F9 – This announces where you are on the Page and in pwWebSpeak and when issued again identifies the URL associated with the current Page element if one exists, and when issued a third time will spell the associated URL

INCRFONTSIZE, Shift-F11 – Increase the size of the font on the pwWebSpeak display

LANG0, Alt-1 – The first language installed for the synthesizer, this is the default

LANG1, Alt-2 – The second language installed for the synthesizer

LANG2, Alt-3 – The third language installed for the synthesizer

LANG3, Alt-4 – The fourth language installed for the synthesizer

LANG4, Alt-5 – The fifth language installed for the synthesizer

LANG5, Alt-6 – The sixth language installed for the synthesizer

LASTITEM, End – Takes you to the last element on a Page or List or the end of a data entry field

LETTERMODE, F12 – This toggles on and off the echoing back of keystrokes in entry fields, for instance, in the Open New Page dialog

LINKSONPAGE, F5 – Takes you to a list of just the links on the Page to let you quickly move through them

LINKTO – This allows the specification of a specific Page to be linked to, either local or Web-based. The syntax is as follows:

linkto:URL

where URL represents the Page to be linked to when this option is selected. For a local page an example is:

linkto:c:\pwwebspeak32\pwwr2.htm

For a Web-based page an example is:

linkto:http://www.prodworks.com

LONGDESC, Alt-I – When a page element, like an Image, includes the Longdesc attribute, this command will follow the link specified in the attribute and load the associated Page or media file.

MEDIADECRVOLUME, unassigned – reserved for future development

MEDIAINCRVOLUME, unassigned – reserved for future development

MEDIANEXT, unassigned – reserved for future development

MEDIAPAUSE, Shift-F4 – Pauses a media player like the Real Audio player. Pressed again, it restarts the plaback

MEDIAPLAY, unassigned – reserved for future development

MEDIAPREV, unassigned – reserved for future development

MENU, Shift-F1 – Brings up the Command Menu dialog if one is defined

NEXTITEM, Down – Move to the next item on the Page or list

NEXTTEXT, Alt-N – Moves to the next element on the Page where there are N characters of text that are not part of a link. The N is specified by default from the Textlen parameter in the webspeak.ini file. This command may also be specified with an explicit number of characters to look for that will override the default. In this case the syntax is:

Nexttext:NN

where NN is the number of characters to be searched for that are not part of a link.

NOACTION – This is applicable only to the re-mapping of the keyboard and provides a method of explicitly turning off a keyboard command

OPENLOCALPAGE – Takes you straight to the Open Local Page dialog. This can also be reached by entering the OpenPage command, F2, twice

OPENPAGE, F2 – Takes you to the Open Page dialog to allow you to enter the URL or name of the file to be opened and browsed next

PAGEELEMENTS, F6 – Takes you back to normal browsing of the Page so that the text content of the Page can be read

PAGESEARCH, F8 – Provides a dialog to enter text and search for that text on the current Page

PAGESUMMARY, F10 – This announces a summary of the Page contents giving the number of headings, links, data entry forms, and a total number of Page elements, or tags, that are on the Page

PAUSE, F4 – Toggles Pause and re-start for reading

PREVITEM, Up – Moves to the previous item on the Page or in a list

PREVTEXT, Alt-P – Moves to the previous element on the Page where there are N characters of text that are not part of a link. The N is specified by default from the Textlen parameter in the webspeak.ini file. This command may also be specified with an explicit number of characters to look for that will override the default. In this case the syntax is:

Nexttext:NN

where NN is the number of characters to be searched for that are not part of a link.

READPAGE, F3 – Starts reading of the Page from the current position

RELOAD, Control-R – This causes the current Page to be reloaded

SAVEAS, Control-S – This allows the current Page to be saved in either HTML or text format in the Download sub-directory of the current working directory

SAVESCRAP, Control-F9 – This adds the current Page element to the scrap file, scrap.txt, in the current working directory

SAYCURRENTURL, Alt-F10 – This announces the URL of the current Page being browsed

SELECTITEM, Enter or Space Bar – Selects the current item, for example selects a link to be followed

SETUP, Alt-U – Takes you to the Setup Dialog where some of the initialization parameters may be dynamically changed and put into effect.

STOP, Escape or Q – Stops reading, retrieving, downloading or leaves the current activity or dialog

VERSION, Control-F1 – Announces the version of pwWebSpeak being used and associated copyright information

WEBSEARCH, F7 – Provides a simplified dialog for searching the Web using the search engine specified in the webspeak.ini file

WORDLIST, F11 – This allows you to review the current element of the Page a word at a time. When issued again, it will spell the current word in the list